Animation is a diverse field that encompasses everything from traditional 2D animation associated with cartoons to elaborate computer-generated special effects. Modern filmmaking relies heavily on animation, and 2D and 3D Animators can also find work in advertising and software development. Learning animation is a great way for creatively minded students to build a versatile creative tool kit and expand on the projects they can work on in their future creative careers.
1) NextGen Bootcamp: Animation with After Effects
Students looking for a comprehensive introduction to the world of 2D and 3D animation should consider enrolling in NextGen Bootcamp’s Animation with After Effects course. In this program, students will receive hands-on, practical experience working with Adobe After Effects, an industry-standard animation software application. This course covers more traditional animation practices such as using After Effects to create 2D animated graphics and text and more advanced animation techniques such as using layer tools to animate 3D assets for film and web projects. Students will learn how to prepare their animations for publication and incorporate them alongside audio and video files.
This course aims to provide students with hands-on experience working with After Effects to produce various animated projects. Over the course of the summer session, students will build an animated social media advertisement, a sample animated title card, and a 3D model of medical animation. These projects all teach students a different aspect of After Effects, and they ensure that students understand the program's various functionalities. By the end of the course, students will have built their own animation demo reel that they can take with them as they apply to art programs, design internships, or entry-level positions. This course requires no experience with animation or After Effects, making it an ideal place for students curious about computer-aided animaton to get a feel for the program and its potential.
This course provides students with the opportunity to build transferable creative skills. While the work will primarily focus on After Effects, students will also learn creative animation techniques and theories and how animation can be utilized outside of the traditional film and television industries. Learning how animation can be used as part of the healthcare industry, for example, is just one case study of the ways in which 3D digital modeling tools have far-reaching applicability.
2) NextGen Bootcamp: Video Editing and Animation Certificate
While there are a myriad of uses for 2D and 3D animation, the vast majority of animators will still find themselves working in the film and television industry, either as traditional animators or as special effects artists. For students interested in following this path and learning the filmmaking aspects of animation, NextGen Bootcamp Video Editing and Animation Certificate might be an ideal option. In this course, students will learn how to use Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects to create 2D and 3D animated assets for video projects and edit those assets into the completed footage. This course offers a comprehensive introduction to the post-production elements of filmmaking. It is an ideal program for students who aspire to work as animators or editors or to create and publish their own video content on platforms like YouTube and TikTok.Â
In the first half of this course, students will learn how to use Adobe Premiere Pro to edit raw video footage into a finished product professionally. Students will learn how to use Premiere Pro’s various cutting and transition tools and how to make alterations to the color, audio files, and footage speed. Beyond this, students will learn foundational editing techniques to understand why certain cuts and transitions are utilized by filmmakers in specific contexts. In the second half of the course, students will learn how to use Adobe After Effects to create 2D and 3D animated assets that they can edit into finished video projects using Premiere Pro. By the end of this class, students will have hands-on experience in all manner of post-production filmmaking and the beginning of a demo reel that they can use to demonstrate their skills to college admissions boards and employers.
This course is also a great place to learn video editing and animation to create your own video content. Platforms like Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok have made online video production more accessible than ever, and amateur creatives are likely to have access to cameras on their phones that rival the cameras used by professionals decades prior. However, these platforms are incredibly crowded, and anyone hoping to become noticed wants to ensure their content is produced as professionally as possible. One way to make this a reality is by learning video editing and animation techniques to help set your work apart from the crowd.
3 iD Tech: Make A YouTube Channel: Animations and Digital Shorts
Some animation classes are more explicitly focused on how students can use them to build their own creative content such as iDTech’s Make A YouTube Channel: Animations and Digital Shorts. In this course, students will learn to use Adobe Creative Cloud software applications to design digital content and create animated assets for YouTube channels. Students will learn how to use Adobe Photoshop and After Effects to create animated content for their channels and how to use Premiere Pro to edit and prepare video footage for publication. Lessons will cover everything from designing a channel logo using Photoshop to preparing your first completed video for upload at the end of the week-long seminar. This course is tailored for the YouTube platform, so students will also learn how to navigate the platform (both in terms of how it works and how to get your content noticed since the website is so crowded).
Since this course is so explicitly focused on YouTube, students will spend much time learning platform-specific skills. For example, one of the first lessons involves creating a YouTube channel logo in Photoshop. This skill is useful for anyone looking to start a YouTube channel, but it isn’t transferable to other social media platforms. This means that this course has a lot of great advice for a very specific audience. If you hope to learn robust film editing techniques or gain the animation skills to build a diverse demo reel to impress a college admissions board, this course may not be the best fit for you. However, if your goal is to learn the tools well enough to pursue your creative passion as an online video content creator, this specialized course is a great way to jump-start that goal.
4) Digital Media Academy: Classical Animation with Adobe Animate and Premiere Pro
Digital Media Academy’s Classical Animation with Adobe Animate and Premiere Pro course aims to teach students how to use programs like Adobe Photoshop and Animate to create animated projects. Students will learn the fundamentals of professional technical animation such as walk and run cycles, character models, acting, and extreme takes. This course will provide students with hands-on experience working with 2D and 3D animation techniques and will teach students how to be attentive to the aspects of animation that are often overlooked such as ensuring that all of a character's movements and gestures feel real and have the right level of fluidity. Students will learn to do this using Photoshop and Adobe Animate, and they will learn how to complete a finished animation project and prepare it for publication using Premiere Pro. This course offers a robust education in classical animation techniques that can be applied to work in film, television, online content creation or even the video game industry.
This course is part of Digital Media Academy’s Tech Accelerator program, which offers students comprehensive tech training and professional development support in various fields. Students enrolled in this class can continue on with their animation training through Digital Media Academy and learn skills like character design and anatomy. In addition, students enrolled in this course can participate in career and skill development seminars that include working meetings with industry-professionals, attending capstone classes, and receiving one-on-one mentorship from experts in animation. The goal of this course is for students to leave the program college- or industry-ready.
5) Manhattan Edit Workshop: Adobe After Effects Level I
Another option for students looking to learn animation is to enroll in an introductory After Effects program, like Manhattan Edit Workshop’s live online Adobe After Effects Level I course. Courses like this offer students a chance to get hands-on experience working with the basic functionalities of Adobe After Effects, an industry-standard tool for digital animation. This experience will be vital for helping students become comfortable with the tools they will have to use when they start working on more elaborate animation projects. This course teaches students how to use After Effects presets to create simple 2D and 3D animations and how to edit and manipulate those animations. Students will also learn basic theories of animation, and they will learn how to work with text and graphics in their designs.
As an introductory course, this class aims to provide students with a foundational knowledge of After Effects that they can take into more specialized training. Since this is an introductory course, students hoping to work with the program professionally will likely need further training to master the program's advanced features. Many service providers will teach more advanced techniques in intermediate and expert After Effects courses, which gives students more opportunities to fit their training around their own schedule, which can be advantageous for high school students looking to start an animation education.Â
6) Plexus Creative: Adobe After Effects—Private Training & Consulting
High school students looking to learn the basics of After Effects may also want to consider private consultation sessions such as Plexus Creative’s Adobe After Effects—Private Training & Consulting seminars. Courses like this are useful for students to learn the basics of After Effects and digital animation because they can be more easily tailored to a student’s needs. Since After Effects is a relatively user-friendly program, students may find that they don’t need a ton of assistance becoming familiar with things like the interface and basic tools and thus want to supplement free training resources with private instruction. This can be particularly useful for high school students who want to dedicate a small amount of time to becoming comfortable enough with After Effects to start experimenting with the application.
Private training options abound for programs like After Effects, so students will want to consider how much training they think they need to receive and how focused they want that training to be. Since private lessons tend to be more varied than classroom curricula, students will want to spend more time exploring their options to ensure that they find the right course. Some private lessons are short and customizable, while others take more time and give students less control over the lessons they will learn. Students may also be able to find training sessions that emphasize a specific type of animation.
7) The School of Visual Arts: Pre-college Animation
The New York City-based School of Visual Arts is a leading provider of high school art and design training programs, and they offer in-person and online Pre-college Animation seminars. These courses are taught by experienced instructors who teach in the school’s undergraduate program and they will offer students a level of art instruction that is not normally available at the high school level. Students will work on hands-on design exercises and build a demo reel of practical sample animations that they can use to demonstrate their proficiency to college admissions boards and potential future clients. Students who complete the program will earn up to three college credits that can be transferred to many reputable art schools nationwide.
In the animation course, students will learn the history of the art form, and they will work with traditional hand-drawn and modern digital animation practices. The course primarily emphasizes 2D animation skills, ranging from sequential hand-drawn images to digital animation projects completed in Adobe Animate. In the latter half of the course, students will learn how to storyboard animation projects and how the medium of animation is uniquely suited to certain kinds of storytelling. The course will conclude with students receiving guided instruction on how to construct a competitive animation demo reel for the college application process.
8) New York Film Academy: 3D Animation Summer Camp For Teens
The New York Film Academy is one of the leading providers of in-person and online filmmaking instruction for high school students. In their 3D Animation Summer Camp program, high school students will receive guided instruction in all of the major elements of animation and filmmaking, culminating with them producing and completing an animated short film. This course guides students through every step of the filmmaking process, from the beginning of the brainstorming phase to post-production work. Students will work with Maya software, and they will learn a wide range of animation concepts and techniques, including modeling, motion, and character construction. Students will also study important animation concepts like weight and secondary action, squash and stretch, exaggeration vs. subtlety and sound-image relationship. Students enrolled in this class will get a robust education in time-tested animation techniques that they can use to develop their own style and voice.
In addition to learning animation techniques, students will also learn other important aspects of the short filmmaking process, including acting, directing, storyboarding, and screenwriting. Students taking this course will produce their own short films, so they will also learn the planning and production steps that go into almost every element of the filmmaking process. This training will introduce students to the complex collaborative elements of filmmaking and will help students develop the skills necessary to work alongside other creatives in the industry. This is a beginner-friendly course, and students need no background in animation to succeed. By the end of the class, students will have a completed film project that they can continue iterating on and utilize as part of their application materials for college film programs.
9) Syracuse University: Pre-College Computer Animation and Game Development
Syracuse University offers a collection of pre-college summer courses in art and design, including an on-campus Computer Animation and Game Development course. This program offers students a design-focused, non-mathematical introduction to computer design and programming with an emphasis on creating and animating digital environments and objects in Alice. This course is an ideal place for students to blend an interest in computer science with a love of narrative and visual storytelling since Alice allows students to create, populate and animate vibrant digital environments for users and players to explore. While this is a STEM course, it approaches computer science from an angle that prioritizes the creative and visual aspects of 3D animation and the story-telling potentials offered by computer programming skills.
Students enrolled in this course will have access to Syracuse University technology labs and they will learn the major principles of computer programming. This course emphasizes 3D game design, though the skills are largely transferable to other creative endeavors, particularly the soft skills surrounding the analysis/design and critical thinking aspects of computer programming. While no previous coding experience is necessary, students will need a background in Algebra and Geometry. This course provides students with the opportunity to participate in collaborative design workshops and by the end of the class, students will have a collection of portfolio projects that they can add to their application materials.Â
10) The Cooper Union: Summer Art Intensive
The Cooper Union is an art education center located in New York City that offers a collection of Summer Art Intensive programs for high school students. Among their offerings is an animation and drawing seminar that covers traditional and computer-aided animation techniques. In this class, students will learn about the history of animation as a medium, the various techniques and theories that go into animation and the computer programs (like Photoshop and Premiere Pro) that are commonly used in digital animation projects. Students will participate in lectures, group discussions, workshops and collaborative projects with the goal of creating their own animated films. Students will complete several short animated projects and a longer digitally animated project encompassing cinematography and sound. Students will leave the course with a handful of animated projects that they can add to their demo reel.
This course also includes an immersive 2D drawing course for students looking to learn the fundamentals of traditional, hand-drawn animation. Students will spend time learning how to draw the basic assets that will come to populate an animated project, and they will learn foundational artistic techniques that they can apply to virtually any creative project. Learning the basics of traditional drawing is an immediately transferable skill that any creative student will benefit from learning. This course will also provide students with the opportunity to receive feedback on their work from their instructors and their peers, which is a vital component of developing artistic talents. Students looking to pursue a career in animation will find all the aspects of this course productive to their long-term success.
11) Animation Summer Bootcamp NYC
NextGen Bootcamp’s introductory summer course for high schoolers delves into fundamental 2D animation techniques. Animation Summer Bootcamp NYC is an in-person class where you can get hands-on help from expert instructors and connect with other students who are excited about animation. During the first week, the course explores the rich history of animation, from its humble beginnings to today’s cutting-edge techniques. Then, students dive into the nitty-gritty of design and animation principles. Through hands-on sketching exercises and demos, students learn how to apply principles to their own projects.Â
Week two levels up with advanced concepts and a final project. Students incorporate cutting-edge animation techniques, sound design, and timing to create professional-looking projects. They’ll also learn to use the technique of storyboarding to bring their story to life. The final course project applies the skills learned throughout the course. Students will have the opportunity to share their finished projects and receive feedback from peers and instructors. This course is sure to build confidence and spark a passion for animation. After completing this bootcamp, students receive a certificate of completion they can share online with friends, or include in college applications and job searches.
12) Animation Summer Bootcamp Live Online
Students who can’t attend a summer bootcamp in NYC can access this exciting class online. In Animation Summer Bootcamp Live Online, experienced instructors teach a live, interactive course. Remote setup assistance is available, and students work on all the same hands-on projects as in-person classes. Using Zoom, participants can watch and hear the instructor’s screen in real time, speak to the instructor using computer audio, phone, or external microphone, and share their screen with the instructor. Students can even allow the instructor to temporarily take control of their computer to provide hands-on assistance.Â
The initial week delves into the history of animation and traces its origins from humble beginnings to the forefront of contemporary techniques. Following this exploration, students immerse themselves in design and animation principles. With hands-on sketching exercises and demonstrations, they learn to effectively apply these principles to their projects. Week two progresses to advanced concepts like state-of-the-art animation techniques, sound design, and timing, used to craft projects with a professional polish. Students master the art of using storyboarding to breathe life into their narratives. The culminating project is an online showcase of the skills acquired throughout the course and provides a chance to receive feedback from peers and instructors.Â
Why Learn Animation in a Summer Program?
There are a lot of reasons for students to spend the summer learning 2D and 3D animation skills, particularly if they are hoping to pursue a creative career. Learning animation will help students develop hard skills that they need to succeed in creative fields, including proficiency in industry-standard tools like After Effects and Premiere Pro, and soft-skills such as collaborative design practice and knowing how to best respond to feedback. If you are interested in a creative career but aren’t sure what you want to specialize in, taking a summer animation course can help you decide if this is the field for you.
In addition, animation skills are surprisingly transferable. While they are most commonly associated with the film and television industry, animation is utilized heavily in software development, game design, advertising, and online content creation. This means that learning animation skills can be applicable in almost any creative field. Additionally, learning animation, particularly when paired with video editing skills, can be invaluable tools for students who want to launch their own creative projects on social media platforms like TikTok or YouTube. Regardless of whether you want to work on a Hollywood blockbuster or on your own video content, learning animation can be a very effective way to help meet that goal.
Taking a summer animation course can also provide you with immediate practical benefits if you are looking to pursue additional education in an art program. Not only will learning basic animation skills help set you up for long-term success, but almost all animation programs provide students with hands-on experience working on real-world projects. This means that by the end of a course, you’ll have not only spent more time practicing and revising your work, but you will also have completed projects that you can add to your portfolio for when you apply to art programs, internships or jobs. Plus, many professional training programs, including pre-college programs, offer certificates of completion or college-level credit that you can make use of in the future.